Page 36 of Vega

“Don’t,” he warned.

I sprayed him directly in the face.

He cursed and turned away, throwing one arm over his eyes, to shield his eyes and nose.

I ran to the door. But he caught the back of my blouse before I reached it. The fabric pulled tight against my throat as I twisted around and drove my keys toward his face.

He blocked my wrist. So, I raked my nails across the exposed skin near his eyes.

“Fuck!” he growled, and his grip loosened.

I drove my knee upward. He shifted just enough to keep me from landing where I intended, but I caught his thigh hard enough to make him grunt.

“Get out of my house!” I shrieked, hoping my neighbors would hear me.

“I’m not trying to hurt you.”

“Bullshit!”

I swung the pepper spray again. He knocked it from my hand, but I grabbed his wrist and bit down through the fabric of his glove.

He cursed louder and pulled away. I turned, unlocked the dead bolt, and yanked the door open. I made it one step into the doorway before a thick arm locked around my waist and ripped me backward.

My feet left the floor. I screamed and kicked, but he pulled me firmly against a body that felt like solid muscle. One of his arms remained around my waist while the other trapped both of mine against my chest.

“Stop fighting.” His voice sounded unbothered, which terrified me more than yelling would have.

I threw my head backward, hoping to break his nose. He turned in time, and my skull struck the side of his masked face instead.

“Goddamn it!” he fussed.

“Let me go!”

As he held me, I kicked at the open doorway, trying to hook my foot around the frame. He shifted his weight and dragged me farther inside.

The condo door remained open, and I stared longingly at the freedom only a few feet away.

I twisted in his grip and snapped my teeth toward his forearm. But he jerked it out of reach.

“Stop trying to bite me,” he warned, almost as if it was funny.

“Go to hell.” Then I tried again.

Still holding me with only one arm now, he caught my jaw carefully between his gloved fingers before my teeth could reach him. “I said stop fighting.”

“And I said go to hell.” Then I turned my face towards his and spit in his face.

He jerked back and gave me the opportunity to stomp on his foot, threw my elbow backward, and fought harder.

He kicked the condo door shut behind us, and the click of the lock sounded final.

I stared into the eyes visible through his mask and understood that my fear had been right all along. Someone had been watching me, and now he was inside my home to kill me. But every murder documentary I’d ever watched had lied to me. The killers were always frumpy men with strange bodies, bad posture, and the kind of faces that made you assume they smelled like sweat, cigarettes, and a damp basement. The man holding me felt nothing like that. Even in the darkness, I could tell his body was hard and muscular beneath his clothes. His chest pressed solidly against my back, and the arm around my waist felt powerful enough to lift me without effort. Worse, he smelled delicious, like expensive cologne, clean skin, and something sexy I had no business noticing while being kidnapped. His voice sounded like baritone butter. It was deep, smooth, and entirely too attractive for a man wearing a poo-shiesty mask in my apartment.

Apparently, death had upgraded its presentation.

VEGARRO “VEGA” MORETTI

I had been prepared to deal with fear. I hadn’t been prepared for Sonnet to fight like she had been waiting her entire life to whoop some ass. She twisted in my arms, kicked at my legs, and snapped her teeth toward any part of me they could reach.